The Verbal System Of Classical Hebrew In The Joseph Story: An Approach From Discourse Analysis -- By: Yoshinobu Endo

Journal: Tyndale Bulletin
Volume: TYNBUL 44:2 (NA 1993)
Article: The Verbal System Of Classical Hebrew In The Joseph Story: An Approach From Discourse Analysis
Author: Yoshinobu Endo


The Verbal System Of Classical Hebrew In The Joseph Story:
An Approach From Discourse Analysis1

Yoshinobu Endo

Introduction

The present study investigates the function of the verbal forms in biblical Hebrew prose, using the Joseph story (Gen. 37-50) as a corpus, examining word order, tense, aspect, clause type, sequentiality, and related matters.

The thesis treats direct discourse and narrative separately. It begins by investigating direct discourse, because of its possible resemblance to real speech (chs. 2-6) and then applies the results of this study to narrative (chs. 7-8). While no major functional distinction between direct discourse and narrative can be observed, in the former there is a greater variety of verbal forms (e.g. modal, hortatory forms, etc.) and more free- standing verbal forms. Chapter 8 examines both main and subordinate clauses.

The thesis begins with an examination of one-clause verbal utterances in direct discourse, followed by utterances of two or more clauses. In the case of one-clause verbal utterances (ch. 2) we discuss several issues related to translation into English, and concentrate on the factors which influence the choice of verbal form within a single clause/sentence. This provides a basis for what follows in subsequent chapters, where syntactic interaction with adjacent clauses is considered. Hortatory clauses are examined separately in Chapter 6.

I. Word Order, Tense And Aspect

The verbal form may appear either in clause-initial position (ø - QATAL /ø-YIQT0L) or non-clause-initial position (x- QATAL/x-YIQT0L) without any temporal/ aspectual difference.

Thus the position of the verb does not seem to affect the function of the conjugation. Rather, the fronting of a constituent of the clause seems to function as a topicalisation, placing it in a position of informational prominence or indicating a topic- switching function (i.e. topic-discontinuity).

The conjugations in biblical Hebrew do not distinguish between perfect and simple past or between future, modal and present. Such distinctions entirely depend on the context or the inherent lexical meaning of the word. However, the distinction between QATAL (Past) and YIQTOL (Non-Past) can clearly be drawn, particularly in the free-standing conjugations, except for stative verbs, verbs with a stative sense, passive...

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